About RECALL Legislation.
Holding elected politicians accountable to their election promises is a popular motive among disgruntled electors who expected more from the men and women who they chose to represent them.
I asked Claude.ai.
Recall legislation refers to laws that allow voters to remove an elected official from office before their term ends through a special election. Key characteristics include:
1. Signature Gathering: Opponents must collect a specified number of voter signatures within a set timeframe to trigger a recall election.
2. Specific Grounds: Some jurisdictions require demonstrating misconduct, while others allow recalls for any reason.
3. Election Process: If sufficient signatures are collected, a special election is held where voters choose whether to remove the official and potentially elect a replacement.
4. Varies by Jurisdiction: Recall rules differ significantly between states, municipalities, and levels of government (local, state, federal).
Examples of prominent recall efforts in the United States include the 2003 California gubernatorial recall of Gray Davis and the 2021 attempt to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The primary purpose is to provide voters with a mechanism to hold elected officials accountable between regular election cycles, serving as a form of direct democratic accountability.
One rotten egg
One man’s rose is another man’s thorn.
There is a reason why the ‘first past the post’ election format is controversial. You can please everyone!
Besides, most citizens have no idea how hard it is to affect change to public policies and spending decisions as a single elected representative among 123 others in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario or, worse, as one among 442 in Ottawa’s Parliament. If you ever get the chance to interview a former elected official and ask them about their “accomplishments” while in office, you will understand how anemic their abilities are to actually represent the ~120,000 residents of their riding.
Don’t waste your time or efforts.
Pursuing Recall Legislation will accomplish nothing unless it is to recall the entire political party in charge. That “recall” exists as a “vote of non-confidence”.
Trying to remove one bad egg is like putting a finger in a leaking dike as a boy in Holland learned long ago.
The entire dike needs to be replaced. It’s old, was build long ago using materials and methods common in the day, and the needs and priorities of the citizens it was designed to protect have changed dramatically.
Fill your basket with good eggs
“He’s a good egg” is a saying that I’ve heard in the past. It implies that there are bad eggs too. The more eggs that you stuff into a large basket, the harder it is to identify the good from the bad. If the basket is small, this challenge isn’t so daunting.
